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In a move that appeared to catch members of its own state leadership by surprise, the Congress Thursday announced the return of former Delhi minister Arvinder Singh Lovely as the chief of its Delhi unit.
Pre-scheduled events in the city, including a press conference, were postponed and leaders from the Congress’s state leadership went into a huddle as soon as the decision, in the name of the party’s national president Mallikarjun Kharge, was announced by general secretary K C Venugopal.
Lovely takes over from Chaudhary Anil Kumar.
A key figure in each of the three consecutive terms of Sheila Dikshit as Delhi Chief Minister, as part of which he held significant portfolios including Education, Transport, Urban Development and Revenue, Lovely’s elevation coincided with the third meeting of the Opposition INDIA alliance in Mumbai – which, according to Congress insiders, was “not accidental”.
A section of the Congress’s Delhi leadership said Lovely taking over the reins of the party will ease the way for a seat-sharing agreement with INDIA ally Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), in the coming Lok Sabha elections. Lovely is known to share cordial relations with the AAP unlike, for example, the other Congress contenders for the top Delhi job – Ajay Maken and Sandeep Dikshit. The two have been vocal in their opposition to such a tie-up, with the Congress central leadership often forced to interfere to soothe ruffled feathers.
There are some in the Congress Delhi unit who, however, argued that Lovely’s appointment would mean just the opposite in terms of its relations with the AAP.
Though time will tell which of the two possibilities materialise, both sections are agreed that the appointment of the party’s East Delhi strongman and prominent Sikh face in the city’s politics had been a long time coming, given the “trust and closeness” the Congress national leadership has always shown him “on more than one occasion”.
A source said: “Lovely is expected to play a very important role in ensuring that the party’s cadre falls in line as regards the seat-sharing agreement with the AAP in Delhi for 2024… Additionally, he is also a probable Lok Sabha candidate from the East Delhi constituency.”
In 2019, when the BJP had swept all the seven Lok Sabha seats in the Capital, Lovely had come second in the constituency.
A senior party leader said that beyond 2024, Lovely’s appointment was significant for the 2025 Delhi Assembly elections, in which the Congress would definitely fight against the AAP. “His appointment should be viewed as a continuation of the Sheila Dikshit legacy, as part of whose governments Delhi was transformed, and which will form the foundation of our campaign for the 2025 elections,” the leader said. “For the sake of stopping the BJP, the need is to forget state rivalries now. But we will go head to head against the AAP in 2025, come what may. Just look at what the AAP has done to Delhi, they have destroyed everything the Congress built,” the leader added.
Lovely has had a long career in Delhi politics, first as a student leader as part of the NSUI, before he was elected as an MLA for the first time from Gandhi Nagar at the age of 30. A four-time MLA now, he was first appointed Delhi Congress chief in 2013.
That term had ended with the party’s drubbing at the hands of the AAP in the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections, when Arvind Kejriwal had led his party to win 67 of 70 seats, ending the 15-year reign of the Congress in the Capital. Lovely had resigned and gone under the radar after the polls.
In 2017, Lovely had made an abrupt return to the political centre stage with a dramatic rebellion, accusing the Congress of corruption in ticket distribution for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections. Then, days before the civic corporation polls, he had joined the BJP.
In an acknowledgment of his significance to the BJP, Lovely was welcomed into the party by its then national president Amit Shah. However, after that, Lovely did not find any post in the party’s hierarchy and, nine months later, returned to the Congress.
A leader said: “Lovelyji is not only close to Rahul (Gandhi) ji but also (Mallikarjun) Khargeji. He was the only leader from Delhi to be picked for the first-ever Central Election Authority, which presided over polls to the post of the party’s national president last year.”
The leader also said it was “myopic” to view Lovely’s appointment only from the point of view of the Congress’s ties with the AAP. “We must remember that the INDIA bloc is above party lines and is a joint national front against the BJP,” the leader said.
Another leader gave the example of the voting over the Delhi services Act in Parliament. “The Congress opposed it since it is unconstitutional, and not because it supports the AAP Delhi government. Any association with the AAP will be based on our decision to take on the BJP, instead of supporting a particular party.”
As regards the other frontrunners, Uttarakhand in-charge Devender Yadav’s name did the rounds after he was part of several delegations to senior leaders regarding the restructuring of the party in recent months. However, a leader said: “Yadav had fallen out of favour with the party’s national leadership given the Congress’s lacklustre performance in the Uttarakhand Assembly elections.”
As for Sandeep Dikshit, Sheila Dikshit’s son, the leader said the party did not view kindly comments made by him regarding the Congress’s political activities, even if in his personal capacity.
The ball for the changes was set rolling on August 16, when Kharge and Rahul chaired a crucial meeting with the party’s Delhi unit, which followed several rounds of meetings with state leaders by Deepak Babaria, a Gujarat leader who was made the Congress in-charge of Delhi and Haryana in June.
Soon after the August 16 discussions, Congress leaders had talked about hitting the ground to strengthen the party in the seven Lok Sabha seats. This had drawn a sharp reaction from the AAP, which had questioned the Congress intent given that the two parties were meant to be allies for 2024.
